Category: Essai

Part of the So to Speak mission is to recognize that no work is produced in a void apart from experience. That what we produce is inextricably connected to who we are and the lives we live. And, just as we want to recognize this in the work we publish, we want to recognize that the editorial process of selecting and presenting work is connected to the individuals that compose the So to Speak’s staff. We don’t want the name of our journal to obscure the fact that individual bodies and minds work behind the print. With this in mind, I set off to ask our outgoing editors a few things about their time at So to Speak and the incoming editors about their goals for strengthening the journal’s ability to serve in the coming year.

But even following the June 2015 Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, I have encountered some pernicious examples of homophobia that shake my faith in progress, or at the very least, validate my fears of a conservative backlash following nationwide marriage equality.

Which leaves me with this question: where is the line between helping your child be a socially competent citizen who can have a tooth filled or a vaccination without a struggle and teaching your child (your girl) directly, or through example, that her pain is less important than her ability to withstand it? The answer is not in the way that I was taught to experience pain.